Vince
Vince Sihanouk (actual name "Vinsaur"), later referred to as "Guerillo" after his extensive use of guerrilla tactics in the Resistance before actively fighting, was a Great Knight who became the leader of the Great Knight Resistance, or S.A.C. (Society Against Chaos). Vince, after contemplating the differences of Chaos and the Great Knights, sought to reform the latter, betraying his friends, such as Samson and Delphius, whom he would later fight. After his failed attempt to kill or capture Medusa in a large scale assault on her castle, his rebellion began to crumble, ending with his death at the Battle of Vinharar, in which Vince deliberately made his last stand to allow his brother Vindor and the final remnants of the Great Knights to escape. Childhood Vince Sihanouk, born Vinsaur Sihanouk, was the son of a Great Knight named Vincarch. Raised in a family of six, Vinsaur was the third eldest, but from an early age also the most charismatic - his two older brothers Vindor and Vinlus were both relatively quiet and studious. According to Great Knight noble tradition, which Vincarch rarely followed, Vinsaur was sent away as a page at the age of seven to the castle of his second uncle Viktus and his father Vultukus, who, through marriage, was a distant relative of the Royal House of the Havik Kingdom, a neighbouring coastal realm that was allied with the Great Knights. However, the Kingdom was also currently in a large-scale civil war, following the incumbent King Andlond's failure to distribute the hereditary realms among his brothers equally. This led to his six other brothers fighting in a war known as the War of the Seven Brothers, which evolved into the more brutal War of the Five Princes. Due to Vultukus' alignment with Prince Nendor, the oldest of Andlond's younger siblings, their village came under siege by Prince Vilnen a few years into the war. It was during this battle that Vinsaur's abilities were first recognised, especially by the Great Knight Army under the then-Captain Halm Hallstav. Only two years later, Viktus decided to move to Invinojug, the Great Knight capital, where he attempted to persuade the Great Knight leaders to support Nendor's claim to the throne of Havik. During Viktus' lengthy battle with the Great Knight conservatives, Vinsaur had to act as a page to Lord Bram Beriaur, Mayor of Invinojug, and became friends with Delphius and Samson, both of whom were also pages and despised Beriaur. It was also during this time that Samson began to uncover the hidden secrets of the Great Knights and shared his discoveries with Delphius and Vinsaur. At this point, Vinsaur began to call himself "Vince", as the word saur in the second half of his name meant "lizard" in Hellenic (Spearton) languages, preferring a name which both his parents abbreviated his name to and meant "prevailing". At the age of twelve, Vince was taken as a squire by the now-General Hallstav, who had met Vince previously, and shared his visions of reforming the Great Knights into a more liberal utopia, which would later heavily influence Vince's political stance and his eventual refusal to join Chaos as he saw an alternative option to establishing freedom. Vince and Hallstav would often visit Beriaur's castle, with the former visiting his friends and the latter participating in government debates where he pushed for a more liberal agenda. It was also during this time that they met Astrius Tianius, a tragic legendary adventurer, and his companions, who would later uncover the beginnings of Chaos to their west. When the remnants of his party returned, he was gifted with a remnant shard of the Mortis Gem, which Samson and Delphius had previously stolen, in order to study its powerful properties. Over time, Vince became a professional warrior under the watch of Hallstav, participating in many campaigns such as against the Dirvishes (the race of the majority of the Bombers) that inhabited the Ice Hills to their south and the remnants of the Havik rebels (Nendor and his brother Numengaer had become joint kings). When Vince returned home at the age of eighteen, he was officially a knight, having been knighted after leading a personal charge against the Dirvishes at the Defence of Icuwin Temple and breaking the enemy. As a Great Knight Now a Great Knight, Vince continued to serve under the command of General Hallstav in the Majestic Order (the 4th Great Army), the largest Great Knight army, alongside Delphius and Samson. He continued to participate in small campaigns in the border regions of the Great Knights, building up an excellent reputation for his soldiers, as well as befriending many other Great Knight captains, most notably Parean and Nircurus. Soon, Vince became one of the most respected captains among the Great Knights, especially due to his former status as squire to the now-General of the Majestic Order, and several of his family members similarly became involved in the military, such as his older brother Vindor Sihanouk, who would later go on to become a famed strategist among the Resistance. The Eclipse Expedition At the age of 22, Vince was attached to the Eclipse Expedition, named due to the prophesied eclipse that would engulf the lands to the west where Rovaltinny, their target, was located. The aim of the expedition was to send aid to the Rovalians who had made an alliance with the Great Knights for mutual defence, despite the impracticality of the agreement, many years ago. Yet, the expedition was pitifully small for a relief force - only 3,100 soldiers in total, while the Rovalians had stated they were facing many thousands of hellish monsters. After the expedition was harassed along its route to Rovaltinny, they arrived to find the Rovalians destroyed and only a few survivors with horrific tales of Chaos, including Amharia, a young girl who survived by hiding amongst the rubble of her orphanage, and Ashangul, an apparently insane Wingidon who claimed to be king. Subsequently, a change of leadership occurred: command was removed from the lenient and democratic Pepin Franciscus, albeit rather uncertain at times, and his arrogant, but capable second-in-command Tangeldis, to the oppressive figure of Kirev Firiskiy, who alongside his fellow commanding Juggernauts such as Uialok, brutalised his own soldiers and continuously ordered his soldiers into suicidal missions, first demonstrated by the frontal assault of a Chaos base to the west of Roval, the capital. Secretly, the idea behind this was to cull the weak from the ranks. Vince and his friends rapidly sought more independence, using their positions to justify more scouting shifts to gain a real understanding of their enemy, in spite of the immense fatigue it placed among their soldiers. During the aftermath of one of Kirev's badly planned assaults against a large Chaos horde, Vince's squadron discovered that Ashangul had escaped. They managed to track him down to a group of Marrowkai and slaughtered them, interrogating Ashangul. He revealed that he was in fact a usurper who first informed Chaos about their nation and requested their support to overthrow the Rovalian king, but was too weak and insane to even be considered as a potential benefactor, although he still maintained his beliefs that he was King. However, a subsequent Chaos attack disallowed Vince any further information, as the pretender king managed to escape, all while to the north of their position, Kirev once again lead his troops through a suicidal march under fire from all sides by Chaos forces, eventually leading to the death of Vectiam, at the time the primary caretaker of Amharia, in part due to the girl's unwillingness to kill her half-brother Negus. As a result, Vince had become the only person remaining that Amharia felt she had a semblance of a connection to. Following her own dreams and reflections, Amharia decided to take the imitative and chase after Vince's scouting detachment, revealing the abandoned Rovalian fortress of Caras Gern, which was untouched by Chaos, and could be used as a potential new base hidden from Kirev. In light of Kirev's authority and loyalism to the Great Knights, Vince's friends developed their ideals of anarchism, many of whom were eventually attracted by the prospect of Chaos when they discovered the intentions of Medusa, and others simply deserted. Vince, on the other hand, stood firmly by Pepin, retaining his belief that the Great Knights could be reformed and fight off Chaos. However, Kirev, who would later be revealed to be Lord Verick, had no intention of allowing Vince's reformist views from developing and proving a sufficient threat to Chaos, and sent Pepin, Vince and many of their comrades who agreed with their reforms on a large suicide attack through a Chaos ambush. This would leave many of the other, disenfranchised Knights, such as Parean, Nircurus, Hastini, Samson and Delphius, alone to inflict his punishments on the weaker of them and ultimately turning the stronger ones towards Chaos. This was also applied in his executions of soldiers who had disobeyed him, most notably the massacre of the imprisoned soldiers in Duiost when a small revolt broke out, with those such as Galderian and Grifo not being executed as they were seen as potential anarchists. Vince's moderating was instead spent on persuading Pepin to turn on Kirev, as they both knew that he was clearly destabilising the expedition. When Pepin eventually agreed and his troops all marched back to face Kirev and persuade the others to mutiny, he discovered that two of his scouts had been killed by Eclipsors, and began to return to the camp and defend alongside Kirev before they attacked him. On their return, they encountered Kirev, his "Juggernaut" Shock Bodyguard and a large Chaos contingent with him. There, he found that Kirev was in fact Lord Verick, a Great Knight who had been jailed for his hatred of authority, mass killings and murder of several high-ranking Great Knight leaders, but had escaped his execution and joined Medusa in fighting for Chaos, being made immortal for doing so. He was the one responsible for stirring up trouble in the northern kingdoms and killing Carolus Franciscus. When the real Kirev was killed in battle against Chaos, his dead body was recovered and reanimated by Medusa, who allowed Verick to possess it and wreak havoc among the Great Knights before they invaded. While Vince and most of the soldiers engaged each other, an enraged Pepin attacked Verick, but stopped when Verick used Kirev's memories to coax him into thinking that Kirev was still somehow alive in that body. Doing so distracted Pepin and caught him off guard when Verick lashed out again. Vince managed to intervene and stabbed Verick, who reverted back to Kirev's memories to taunt Pepin. This left Pepin distraught at the presumed return and death of his best friend, and left him unable to think properly when his contingent was retreating to warn the other Great Knights, allowing him to sustain multiple injuries. Emotionally and physically crippled, Pepin persuaded Vince to leave him behind, but promise to reform the Great Knights to prepare for Chaos. Vince eventually complied and Pepin made his last stand fighting the new body of Verick, who struck him down as he had done so to Carolus. The remainder of Vince's troops were killed as they were pursued by a large group of Crawlers, Eclipsors and Marrowkai, with only a handful escaping safely to an abandoned Rovalian fortress, where they hid from their attackers. After reinforcements finally arrived, Vince's troops crushed their opponents in a pincer, utterly destroying them.Category:Characters Category:Male Characters Category:Character Category:Great Knights Category:Eclipse of the Knights Category:The Great Northern Saga Category:Alive